e time of my first sixteen
years of existence I wasted upon its acquisition. Yet every one whom I
imitated--Woloda, Dubkoff, and the majority of my acquaintances--seemed
to acquire it easily. I watched them with envy, and silently toiled to
become proficient in French, to bow gracefully and without looking at
the person whom I was saluting, to gain dexterity in small-talk and
dancing, to cultivate indifference and ennui, and to keep my fingernails
well trimmed (though I frequently cut my finger-ends with the scissors
in so doing). And all the time I felt that so much remained to be done
if I was ever to attain my end! A room, a writing-table, an equipage
I still found it impossible to arrange "comme il faut," however much
I fought down my aversion to practical matters in my desire to become
proficient. Yet everything seemed to arrange itself properly with other
people, just as though things could never have been otherwise! Once I
remember asking Dubkoff, after much zealous and careful labouring at my
finger-nails (his own were extraordinarily good), whether his nails had
always been as now, or whether he had done anything to make them so: to
which he replied that never within his recollection had he done anything
to them, and that he could not imagine a gentleman's nails possibly
being different. This answer incensed me greatly, for I had not yet
learnt that one of the chief conditions of "comme il faut"-ness was to
hold one's tongue about the labour by which it had been acquired.
"Comme il faut"-ness I looked upon as not only a great merit, a splendid
accomplishment, an embodiment of all the perfection which must strive to
attain, but as the one indispensable condition without which there could
never be happiness, nor glory, nor any good whatsoever in this world.
Even the greatest artist or savant or benefactor of the human race would
at that time have won from me no respect if he had not also been "comme
il faut." A man possessed of "comme il faut"-ness stood higher than, and
beyond all possible equality with, such people, and might well leave it
to them to paint pictures, to compose music, to write books, or to do
good. Possibly he might commend them for so doing (since why should not
merit be commended where-ever it be found?), but he could never stand
ON A LEVEL with them, seeing that he was "comme il faut" and they were
not--a quite final and sufficient reason. In fact, I actually believe
that, had we possessed a br